Draping the Chemise

After I had dyed my fabric and all of that was ready I could begin draping my chemise. to begin with I wanted to plan out my neckline. Since lace was going to be the actual straps my plan was to mark out my neck-line on the mannequin and then pin the fabric to the form ready to be attached to the lace when it was ready. 

Here is my marked neck line

 Next I began draping the cotton voile on the form. I started by cutting two pieces the length I wanted it to be; one for the back and one for the front. I used the entire width of the fabric because it needed to be a little bigger so it could slide over the head easily. Then I just started to work with the fabric and this is what I ended up with:

Front

As you can see the front has more small pleats around to create a slopping neck-line. Where-as the back has just one really big pleat in the centre back as the focal point.

Back

In the end I did cut off quite a bit of seam allowance and excess. I wanted it to be roomy but not massively big. I planned on using french seams to finish the side seams so I could pin it right together on the form.

At this stage I still hadn't decided on my lace so, although I wasn't going to use it, I pinned on the original lace I bought to see how it worked with the fabric.

With Original Lace

I was actual very surprised to find that I didn't particularly like this lace on the chemise. I feel like it looks a bit heavy and is maybe even a little too wide. Although I still really like this lace and will use it in some capacity on my costume I don't feel like it really fits here. 

Second type of lace

I found this second type of lace in my room when I was looking through some of the lace I already had. I'm not too sure where it came from but I thought that since it is a little more narrow it might be a good comparison to the other lace. I think this is actually a much better fit both in style and width. I like the scalloped edges and the straight edge would make it easier to attach to the cotton voile.

I've tacked this lace on the chemise ready for the second fitting and after that I will decide to either keep this black lace or find something different.